I work at UCSD and have just moved from PB to NW clairemont. My commute would usually be up santa fe street and then onto gilman drive.

Now i am in clairemont i have a train track blocking me from getting to santa fe street or gilman drive.

However, i used google maps and the directions suggest going down jutland drive, turning left at morena and then crossing the railway tracks to santa fe street. The ride the city feature on this website suggests going via genesee, but that route is both longer and has more traffic.

You can see the suggested route below - anyone used it?Any suggestions about getting from morena to santa fe street?

As far as I know, you can only really get from morena to santa fe down at balboa (and if you were coming from morena south ti would only be more awkward... crossing 4 busy lanes of balboa/waiting on a narrow median- yuck!)Coming down from Jutland (which is an awesomely steep little hill. :face-angel:) would mean lots of unnecessary travel.

Your other alternative, arguably more direct, is to take hilly Genesee down from c.mesa, upto governor, down again, then upto and left on Nobel, which takes you to Gilman/across the 5 eventually.

For the sake of directness and to avoid unnecessary climbing I recommend riding down Jutland to Balboa and making a right on Santa Fe. If you allow yourself to build up some speed, merging with traffic coming off the I-5 and Morena really isn't a problem if you position yourself properly in the lane. Just like in bike racing, faster is safer in most instances. Additionally, you will not be placing yourself at risk of citation for crossing the railroad tracks.

Hoofing it across the tracks is a PITA, though I usually wear bike shoes, which makes that worse. I'm pretty sure that all of the places it's possible aren't technically legal. You can go down Morena to Balboa to cross back to Santa Fe, which is a fairly long detour. You can go up to Clairemont Mesa to Genesee to Nobel back to the UCSD area. You can take Genesee all the way to UCSD if you need to be on the North side of the campus. You can take Regents to Governor to Genesee. It really would be nice if they made a bike/pedestrian bridge from Morena over the train tracks to Santa Fe somewhere in the vicinity of Jutland.

If you have an MTB, you might be able to take Regents down to the canyon dirt path and get back to the Rose Canyon bike path. I'm not sure if that's actually workable though.

At the end of Jutland, there is a trail around the chain link fence. You can take this down into the concrete drainage channel (Rose Creek). Depending on the water level, it is sometimes possible to walk under the bridge under the tracks. The last time I was there, about 2 months ago, there was still a lot of water in the creek. I was able to ride (MTB) through the water across to the south side of the weir and then climb up the bank. Walking across the tracks here is fairly easy--but this is mostly because there is active construction going on, and I wouldn't do it when workers are there.

I used to cross the track frequently farther north, near the end of Santa Fe, to get to and from trails. But the sad fact is that crossing the tracks anywhere these days (except parts of Rose Canyon) is getting pretty difficult and unpredictable because of all of the construction going on--not to mention that the whole route will be double-tracked, making crossing that much sketchier. There is a crying need for pedestrian/bike bridges, but these have not materialized, though at least one (near the 52/5 junction) has been in the planning stages for 40 years.

I trimmed the overgrown weeds by the chain link fence so it's not horrible. The ramp is sketchy as it has a big sink hole. The stream is crossable by foot. It's slippery AF so I don't recommend riding across. There's a dirt trail to cross then lift your bike over the tracks. If daring or the stream is too deep, you can run across the train bridge too but keep an eye out for the signal lights so you don't encounter a train. I don't think there's room for both of you.

If you ride outside of worker hours, you can avoid being yelled at.

The other crossing at the end of Santa Fe if full of workers, ditto the spot South of these (by the stand up Paddle board shop on Morena) but there are workers there too and the hill you have to climb is very steep.

Here's the option I use if I want to avoid workers, Santa Fe to Balboa, mentioned by HMeins above (I travel from PB):I just stay on the sidewalks on the short Balboa stint both ways (I trimmed the weeds out of my way). Good luck!

thank you all for your ideas, I have gone W. down Balboa then right on Santa Fe but it just bugs me thinking that this is the kind of spot people aren't expecting bikes and not looking for them as they merge onto or exit Balboa